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Originally Posted by
MystryBox
It seems to me that the core teachings of Christianity are immoral. In fact they are multiple immoralities and absurdities piled on top of each other.
- The creation story is clearly legendary complete with magical fruit, talking snakes, mud-men and rib-women. It is absurd. There is no good reason to believe it is anything other than an ancient myth.
There is nothing legendary about the creation account at all. The fruit represents a choice for the first God-conscious man and women. The snake is symbolic. Women did come from the same dust as men. You have every reason to believe God exists because the universe can't always have existed. No other option exists.
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- In the above myth naked innocents had no knowledge of things like good, evil and death until they ate from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. How can innocents be responsible for committing some evil when they had no knowledge of what good and evil are? How can you tell them that if they disobey they will surely die and expect them to understand when they don't know what death is? The story makes no sense.
The first God-conscious man and women had the power to follow God's will. They didn't need to know how to figure out the age of the universe or how to do multiplication. All they needed to do was follow their spirit obediently. When they chose to be disobedient, sin entered, knowledge increased and sin begat sin. They knew what death was because they were told they will die, that is, lose their communication with God.
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- Due to the "transgression" of the above naked innocents, man is supposedly cursed and deserving of hell by default. By default we're all supposedly deserving of hell due to our sinful nature which is due to the sin of a long ago ancestor. Yet this core belief is immoral as it is immoral to punish one person for the sin of another.
You are not eternally punished for being born into sin but refusing the solution God provides. In a naturalistic world it is unavoidable that we are born into sin from the original sin. This world would not exist the way it does otherwise from the fall.
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- The supposed "solution" to the above problem of man deserving hell is a human sacrifice. This one doubles as both absurdity and immorality. It's absurd because human sacrifice as a solution to anything is absurd. I mean how does human sacrifice make sense? What does killing something DO beyond making the thing you killed dead? In pharmacology terms, what is the "mechanism of action" of a murder? Are we to believe god looks down and says "oh, well they killed that innocent guy so now I can forgive them for how I made them"?
It wasn't just some guy, but God Himself. Evil men killed the perfect sacrifice. If you stand on the side of those evil men or the man who said He was God and proved it by His resurrection, this determines where you spend eternity. God does this for Himself to reconcile you to Him if you were willing. He needs you to believe in His Son so your heart is in the right place.
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- And of course the human sacrifice is immoral because punishing one person for what someone else did is immoral. If all your children are being bad but one, do you have the bad ones kill the one good one so you can forgive the rest? Would anyone do that? No? So why do you allow the same craziness to go unquestioned in your religious beliefs?!?
Since you can't save yourself, God can through Himself, but you must be a willing participant. God didn't caue anyone to kill Him. That was their choice. Calvinism is not Christianity. Whoever received Jesus by what He did for us on the cross the same shall be saved. God didn't make the bad ones kill Him, but He foreknew their evil hearts would, so He used evil for good. Really think about this. There you are in your sin and you can't save yourself so God provides the solution and all you need do is believe on Him and His only begotten Son. There really is no better solution to the sin problem and being received back to God. Sin has to get paid for. One little sin eternally separates a person from God but through God's mercy and grace, it is no longer I that live but He lives in me by the Holy Spirit.
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- Another note on the above human sacrifice--it supposedly doesn't work unless you believe it. This is again both an immorality and an absurdity. It's as absurd as the sacrifice itself... why and how exactly does belief have anything to do with anything? Are we to believe god looks down and says "well they believed this ancient story with no good evidence, so now I can accept their murder and forgive them for how I created them"?
Nothing is more well documented in antiquity than the Christian account so that is more than enough evidence. Hence, you are accountable. You're assuming those who murdered Jesus have repented and believed in Jesus. God created them perfectly so why does He need to forgive them for how He created them? That makes no sense. Belief begins the process. It enters you through the doorway of salvation, for no man is saved by works. Unless you hold to reality, reality can't save you.
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- And requiring belief in an unlikely story with no good evidence or else you doom someone is immoral. It results in torturing otherwise good people forever in hell because of where god decided to birth them or (like in my case) because they couldn't force themselves to believe a silly story. This moral conflict actually causes quite a few Christians to not believe in hell (why they don’t connect the dots one step further and just leave the religion entirely is my question).
Again, nothing is more well documented in antiquity than the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Since more than ample evidence exists you are without excuse. If you can't find a naturalistic explanation for the data, realize you are just blowing smoke and circumventing. Eternally separated from God is torture but that's what you want so why complain about it? I guess that's what you want is to complain about God for eternity in Hell. God gives you your wish. Even if you lived on some remote island somewhere, God still provides you common grace, so if you were to look at the mountains and the starts and received God as He is, instead of the idols of the people around you, God would save you. So surely if you were presented the word of God you would accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. So it has nothing to do with place since God's grace is more than sufficient for all people whether through common or special grace of the gospel. All things sum up in Christ and are reconciled back to Him. You may not like it, but that's the way God did it! I think it is most wonderful and glorious that from above comes to tabernacle among men. If a person doesn't believe in Hell and they call themselves a Christian, they are what the Bible calls the "tares" trying to look like the saved wheat, for Jesus spoke on Hell more than anyone. Many say to the Lord, Lord, but He says He never knew them.
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I don't think I'm saying anything most Christians don't already know. They just refuse to really THINK about these issues objectively. How any thinking person could be a Christian is totally beyond me. I'm sure some apologist will write a mini-novel reply to try to "spin" excuses for my common sense observations... but whatever the spin come back and read my comments again and see for yourself if they still stand as simple common sense observations despite the excuses and spin.
I hope you will think by seriously considering my response to see how your thinking is wrong. Notice I didn't write a mini-novel but supplied relatively simple and easy to understand responses. Nothing of what you said is common sense at all, but one can see the evil spirit working in your mind and your spirit quite easily. God uses the foolishness of the cross to tear down the citadels of your mind.
Common sense observation observes nature needs a cause and can't always have existed. Common sense says since you can't find a naturalistic explanation for the resurrection data, realize Jesus raised Himself from the dead. Common sense says you can't save yourself, you won't cease to exist, you can't save yourself by works, and there is no better way for God to reconcile you to Himself by the ransom He paid. This is the best salvation you could ask for. This is all actually intuitively known for God placed within your heart a spirit of God-consciousness and made in His image which will never cease to exist. Though you are permanently existing, eternal life is only given to those who love Him who died for the sins of the whole world. He is the "Savior of all men, specially those who believe" (1 Tim. 4.10). Praise the Lord! Amen.
